Russia supplied roughly a quarter of the enriched uranium that fueled American nuclear reactors as recently as 2023, according to the Energy Information Administration’s Uranium Marketing Annual Report. That single statistic explains why a growing chorus of defense and energy analysts, most recently the policy journal National Interest, is pressing Washington to build a domestic nuclear fuel chain that no foreign government can interrupt. As of April 2026, the legal scaffolding is in place. The industrial capacity to back it up is not.
The law that started the clock
In August 2024, President Biden signed the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act into law. The statute, which originated as H.R. 1042 in the 118th Congress, does not flip a switch overnight. Instead, it sets declining annual caps on Russian low-enriched uranium deliveries to U.S. utilities during a phased transition period, with a full prohibition scheduled to take effect by 2028. Federal agencies are assigned monitoring and enforcement roles, and utilities operating the roughly 90 commercial reactors that generate about 20 percent of U.S. electricity must line up alternative enrichment contracts well before the final cutoff.
National Interest’s argument, echoed by several defense-oriented think tanks, is that the law is necessary but insufficient on its own. Banning Russian imports without standing up replacement capacity, the journal warns, risks trading one vulnerability for another: dependence on a handful of allied enrichers who face their own capacity constraints.
Where replacement fuel could come from
Two allied companies already operate enrichment plants that serve U.S. utilities. Urenco, a British-Dutch-German consortium, runs a centrifuge facility in Eunice, New Mexico, and France’s Orano enriches uranium at its Georges Besse II plant in the Rhône Valley. Both have announced expansion plans, but neither can absorb the full volume Russia previously supplied without multiyear construction timelines and billions in capital investment.
On the domestic side, the picture is thinner still. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing records show that Centrus Energy Corp. operates the only currently licensed American facility producing high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, at its demonstration plant in Piketon, Ohio. HALEU is the fuel grade that most next-generation reactor designs require. Scaling from a small demonstration line to commercial volumes depends on sustained federal funding, construction permits, and regulatory approvals that remain incomplete as of spring 2026. The Department of Energy’s HALEU Availability Program has also contracted with other entities, including Urenco USA for LEU-plus blending, but none of those efforts have reached production scale.
Federal policy is moving, but milestones are murky
A May 2025 executive order titled “Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the Department of Energy” directed federal agencies to accelerate the approval process for testing advanced reactor designs at DOE sites. The White House framed faster testing as a prerequisite for scaling nuclear energy, which in turn increases the urgency of securing reliable fuel. If new reactor designs reach deployment faster, demand for HALEU and other specialized fuels will spike before domestic enrichment can keep pace.
Yet nearly a year after that executive order, no public implementation scorecard has appeared. The Department of Energy has not released detailed production timelines or cost projections for scaling HALEU output at Piketon beyond the current contract scope. Enforcement guidance for the import phase-down, including specific penalties for noncompliance during the transition, has not surfaced in publicly accessible federal records. Without those details, neither utilities nor investors can confidently plan procurement or capital spending.
The EIA’s uranium marketing data, which covers feed deliveries by country and year through 2024, offers the most granular public look at how deeply American utilities have leaned on foreign enrichment services. Replacing that volume requires not just one licensed facility but a coordinated network of uranium mines, conversion plants, and enrichment operations that does not yet exist at the necessary scale.
The cost question no one has answered
For the communities and ratepayers who depend on nuclear power for steady baseload electricity, the practical concern is price. Russian enrichment services have historically undercut Western competitors, partly because Rosatom’s state-backed economics do not need to satisfy private shareholders. Shifting to allied or domestic suppliers could raise fuel costs, and those increases would eventually flow through to electricity bills. How large that impact might be depends on variables that remain unresolved: the pace of allied capacity expansion, the cost curve for domestic HALEU production, and whether Congress appropriates additional funding to bridge the gap.
National Interest and like-minded analysts argue that the security premium is worth paying. Their case rests on a straightforward calculation: a reactor that cannot secure fuel is a reactor that cannot run, and a grid that loses 20 percent of its carbon-free generation has a climate problem on top of a security problem. The counterargument, raised by some utility executives in trade press interviews, is that moving too fast without adequate supply alternatives risks fuel shortages that would force reactor shutdowns and drive up wholesale power prices.
What comes next for American reactors
The legal framework is set. The import caps are tightening. The question that will define the next two years is whether the industrial base can deliver before the statutory deadlines bite. Centrus must scale. Allied enrichers must expand. DOE must publish the timelines and cost figures that let the market plan. And Congress may need to appropriate additional billions to keep the buildout on track.
None of that is guaranteed. What is guaranteed is the deadline: by 2028, Russian enriched uranium is barred from American reactors. Between now and then, every quarter without visible progress on domestic and allied capacity makes the landing harder. Utilities are already negotiating backup contracts, and reactor developers designing around HALEU are watching Piketon’s output numbers the way airlines watch jet fuel prices. The policy intent is clear. The execution remains the open bet.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
